Photomosaic
It was a magical summer dawn.
The previous night, I saw the first-time plankton shining in the sea. I was in the southern Euboean Gulf on a much-awaited and long-desired underwater research project. It felt surreal, I honestly never thought I would live it. But here I was, waking in the first stream of light eager to get to work. That was years ago, and since then I have surveyed many more shipwrecks, but somehow the typological problems of the amphorae carried on board the very first merchant ship I ever helped excavate are still with me today.
Underwater research is the pleasant part of my profession.
It is the one where my colleagues and I get to explore, survey, record, photograph and most importantly excavate! It is the most crucial initial part of an archaeological study because it leads to the discovery of new finds. What follows the research is much less impressive, much lengthier and much less exciting. It is the study, parallelism and primarily an investigation of the origin of the items and their chronology to determine the time period in which the shipwreck went down. This involves typologies, petrological studies and much more that would weigh this text down. In short, it takes years to unearth a wreck in its entirety. It demands a big budget, a large team of qualified people and a lot of persistence, but it takes many more years to publish all the finds. And every so often, archaeologists excavate, but never get to print.
Up to the present day, the most comprehensive book ever published on an ancient shipwreck is Das Wrack: Der Antike Schiffsfund von Mahdia, which comes in two volumes. The rest of the wrecks we know about are at best dispersed in preliminary reports, newsletters, journals, conference proceedings and in vague and brief newspaper reports. So, when A. J. Parker back in 1992 was assembling the most extensive catalogue of ancient shipwrecks, which is now very outdated, I can only imagine the frustration he must have experienced.
Gradually, things are getting better.
With modern technologies, in some sectors of archaeology, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. In particular, amphorae, have made an impressive step forward with new catalogues and resources that bring our research data sets closer together. They are crucial for wreck chronologies since they represent the most frequently preserved item on a sunken merchant ship. And yet, an update on the scale of Parker's work is still nowhere on the horizon; whether in print or on the web. Many have tried, but most of them failed even under the auspices of renowned institutes. To whoever is up to this exhaustive and long-term challenge I warmheartedly wish the best of luck and patience. Both will be required to reach the top of the hill in a scattered land of finds. But I am sure, the result, even if not one hundred percent complete (and it never is) will be worth the wait.
